It’s not necessarily that things are getting tighter atop the standings – Indiana and Miami remain a country mile ahead of their Eastern Conference brethren – but with less than a month to go before the playoffs, things are growing a whole lot more competitive. Once an affront to James Naismith, Massachusetts, and peach baskets, the bottom 3/4ths of the playoff ladder has taken on a totally new look since the All-Star break. Specifically: Records since the circus left New Orleans: [Read
At this time of year, it’s common practice to categorize teams into tankers and non-tankers, but where a team is in mid-March isn’t necessarily where they were in October. You have your teams who started the year constructed to be historically atrocious, now rounding spectacularly into form (Philadelphia). Some expected to be bad, but turned out pretty good (Phoenix, Toronto). Some hoped to be maybe-we-scrape-the-playoff-ladder-if-all-goes-well-but-we-know-it’s-a-rebuilding-year competent, then saw everything go straight to the terlit (Lakers). Then there is the curious case of
Before getting hitched, I lived with my future wife for a few months, then we were engaged for about a year and a half. We were told over and over: “It’ll be different when you’re married.” Then the day came, and guess what? Our routines were the same. We treated each other just as we had before. In that sense, absolutely nothing was different. But around us, context changed. People viewed our relationship differently. Making the bond official added a layer of obligation
Everyone on this site, it seems, gets to publish individual rankings for everything from MVP to Sixth Man to Rookie of the Year to Most Improved. Heck, we have more rankings on this site than Gallup. Well, just because Sheridan stuck me and my brother Andy with the Power Rankings — a broader picture looking at the 30 teams, not necessarily the 430 players on them — shouldn’t mean we go voteless, right? I kid. Our canvas is blank, so this
I covered the Lakers in 2010-11 when they were chasing a third straight title and four straight Finals appearances. It was a strange experience. That group started the season 13-2, feasting on a home-heavy, fairly soft schedule. But from there, warning signs started popping up. They had several multiple-game losing streaks, and dropped games to some absolutely hideous teams (the 19-win Cleveland Cavaliers, for example). Those Lakers, save a brilliant run of 17 victories in 18 games coming out of the All-Star
Throw a dart at their schedule, and at any particular moment the Denver Nuggets could look like the worst team in basketball or a monumental success. They opened 1-4, won 10 of their next 12, then not long after dropped eight straight. In the aggregate, Denver is more or less what people figured — a good-but-not-great team capable of making the playoffs, but certainly no lock to do so. The bigger question for the Nuggets going forward is whether they made the
When the Cavs signed Andrew Bynum last summer to a creatively structured, heavily incentivized contract, it was seen as a low-risk, high-reward move capable of pushing Cleveland at the very least into the lower half of the Eastern Conference playoff ladder. Clearly that last part isn’t happening. At least not with Bynum around. The Cavs have suspended Bynum indefinitely, and according to multiple sources are shopping him heavily. The good news? Aside from completely ruining Andrew Bynum Fathead Night on Sunday at
Doing a radio hit over the weekend, I was asked who has the best chance to upset either Miami or Indiana in the Eastern Conference playoffs. In reality, for either to lose a series before the conference finals will require injuries, a lack of attention to detail essentially unprecedented in postseason history, or both. For the record, we settled on Detroit as a potential apple cart upender, because the Pistons do have – for a sub-.500 team, that is – a lot